A Rush of Blood to the head
by Shaye Vespertine
Summary: SongficHarry has one final task to carry out before he goes in search of the remaining Horcruxes...and it involves destroying a certain building...


Hello, it's me again. This is such a good week - I'll be 18 in 2 days' time! YAY!!!

Anyway, as you can see I have felt inspired again to write a songfic - and there might be some more after this one, because I find that COLDPLAY (who owns rights to this song) inspires me to write like nothing else - it's such a perfect music for the HP verse.

Enjoy and review!!

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**A Rush of Blood to the Head**

Grimmauld Place looked as old and worn down as ever as Harry stepped into its main hall and shut the door.  
Ron and Ginny were heading upstairs to make sure there were no creatures or people lurking about the place, and Hermione stood beside him, looking at him with a strange mixture of consternation and pity.

He had to come back to this place, of course he did.  
This wasn't about revenge – he wanted absolution for Sirius, who hated this place just as much if not more, as he does, and just once, Harry would do something that was entirely reckless and pointless – in honour of his dead godfather.

Stomping down the stairs came Ron, then Ginny, both announcing the area was clear.  
Ron stopped on the last step and stared Harry in the eye, studying his features, reading the bare emotion in his friend's eyes, and for the first time, he felt compelled to hug him fiercely and sustain him, as Harry had sustained him countless times.  
But that wasn't a thing guys did, especially when they were both of age – it was unheard of! That was little kids' stuff; both he and Harry had grown much too quickly and were now past that stage.

Ron felt regret that he and Harry had never been physically emotional with each other and hadn't shared at least one true hug, as friends and siblings always did.

Ginny understood that she was witness to a moment the famous trio shared in times of need, and thought it best to check out the library.

She didn't even feel jealous when Hermione put her arms comfortingly around Harry's waist, because Ginny was well aware that she and her brother were Harry's family and had been right from the off.  
She couldn't compete with that – and she didn't want to, she realised, because Harry had a special place for her in his heart, and no one could change it.  
Ron patted him awkwardly on the back, helpless to do anything else.

Harry looked like he was trying very hard to swallow a huge lump in his throat and keep his eyes dry at the same time.  
Hermione let him go and watched with Ron as Harry cleared his throat and composed his features into a set, determined look.

Hermione glanced at Ron – they knew that look very well – and took out their wands.  
He said I'm going to buy this place and burn it down I'm going to put it six feet underground Harry fixed his gaze onto a large picture frame hanging on the wall, covered by drab curtains – Mrs. Black's portrait.Sirius had always wanted that portrait off the wall and possibly burned.He, Harry, would see to it that Sirius got his wish on the other side, wherever he was, and hoped, childishly, that Sirius could see him, and approve.

_He said I'm going to buy this place and watch it fall,_

Ginny appeared form a dark doorway and looked at him understandingly, offering him support and strength.  
Harry wavered for a second.  
This didn't feel right at all – he was supposed to focus on finding the Horcruxes – which sharply brought to mind another task: find Snape – but no, he lengthened his stride towards his girlfriend, face set, eyes shining with a queer light – he would not go back now.

Ginny appeared form a dark doorway and looked at him understandingly, offering him support and strength.Harry wavered for a second.This didn't feel right at all – he was supposed to focus on finding the Horcruxes – which sharply brought to mind another task: find Snape – but no, he lengthened his stride towards his girlfriend, face set, eyes shining with a queer light – he would not go back now. 

_Stand here beside me baby, in the crumbling walls.  
_

With a rush of feeling, he and Ginny entwined their fingers together as Harry brought his wand forward, and pointed it unwaveringly in front of him.  
The curtains swished back and Mrs. Black's eyes bulged out of their sockets at the sight of the deadly stick pointing her right in the face.  
Her voice died mid-scream and she spluttered.  
Harry heard Ron and Hermione upstairs chanting spells and felt the magic weave itself into the walls as its defences started to crack.  
The building itself obeyed his orders because Sirius had left it to him along with all his belongings in his will.  
Harry felt a perverse shiver run down his spine as he felt the building's agony and heard Mrs. Black's protests of outrage.

Ginny added her own considerable spells and it was as thought the walls were trying not to fold in on themselves, making a last desperate stand – residue of all the magic placed on them over centuries of ownership.

_Oh I'm going to buy this place and start a fire Stand here until I fill all your heart's desires_

Harry looked at the floating image of Sirius – a picture taken two years ago, in the last Christmas they would ever spend together – and felt resolute.  
Sirius' gaze was intense and somewhat sad that his house was being destroyed for ever, but there was a quirky twist to his lips that showed amusement and a grim satisfaction as he turned round to stare at his mother's portrait in hateful contempt.

_Because I'm going to buy this place and see it burn_.

Harry's eyes glazed over in sadness even as his gaze, directed at the picture-Sirius, intensified with determination.

_**Do back the things it did to you in return.**  
_

Harry heard moans of pain and checked on Ginny, who seemed to be perfectly unharmed and stood straight and proud.  
He closed his eyes and he heard it again, the moan of solicitous sadness that seemed to be coming from – His eyes snapped open involuntarily, a look of understanding on his features.  
It was Regulus Black's diary, which probably contained a fragment of Regulus himself – his soul and memories, like Tom Riddle's diary, only not as deadly.

There was a burning sensation in his fingertips where the wand was clutched tightly.  
There were ribbons of gleaming sparks weaving softly from its tip, swimming in the air like tendrils of smoke, insinuating themselves under doors, in the cracks of the walls, even around cabinets and over small trinkets of the Black family that had managed to survive the Order's cleaning and Dung's stealing.

_He said I'm going to buy a gun and start a war.  
If you can tell me something worth fighting for_

Dumbledore once told him freedom and justice and peace were worth fighting for – and Harry would fight for them; though those ideals were exactly what killed Dumbledore in the end.  
Along with faith, blind to all except kindness.  
And Snape betrayed that faith that was so easily bestowed upon him, so unwavering, so difficult to remove. Harry couldn't see past anything except the fact that Dumbledore chose to ignore his repeated warnings and died for a traitor he believed to be his most trusted follower.

_Oh and I'm going to buy this place, that's what I said __Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head_

Now the screams he heard were real.  
He realised that somehow Ginny had been moving away from him, mounting the stairs, as though rushing to do something.  
Hermione and Ron's voices suddenly increased in volume and intensity.  
What was going on?  
He was so cold he could barely think past the feel of his heart beating very fast, and the sound of blood rushing to his ears – Cold?

How could he be cold, freezing in fact if the building was on fire?  
Harry's eyes widened in sick realisation and before he knew what he was about, he rushed after Ginny and desperately called their names.  
Dementors had come.

It was like a scene out of a sci-fi movie Dudley had once watched, crowing in delight as the baddies beat up the heroes.  
There were two dozens of them at the least, swarming inside the building despite the – The protections!  
By destroying Grimmauld Place, Harry had just made it plottable and exposed to enemy fire.  
And his friends to danger.

Ron was shouting at Hermione to move aside, and as Harry watched with a sick sense of fear, two Dementors went straight for Ginny, who seemed to be having problems with her Patronus charm.  
With a shout, Harry jumped in front of her, arms held wide to protect her.  
At the corner of his eye he could see Ron fighting against another couple of Dementors, whilst Hermione tried to make her way over to him and Ginny, who seemed to have lost her senses.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"  
With a roar of rage, Harry pointed his wand at the Dementors, whom were now almost upon him.  
An enormous stag erupted form the tip of his outstretched wand and went straight for the nearest Dementor, who cowered away immediately.  
Slowly but surely, they all drove the Dementors away from the area.

When the ordeal was over, they were all breathing hard and sweating nervously.  
But amongst the confusion, they hadn't noticed that a crow swooped in through a window and went straight for Harry's face.  
When Harry saw the black, greasy feathers and the sharp beak, it was too late.  
He was too caught up in the moment to realise that the dark, malevolent eyes were trained solely on him.  
He brought up his arms to protect his face, but one of the bird's talons managed to slice his forehead.  
Ron blasted the bird away viciously, whilst Ginny regained consciousness and Hermione whipped round with a start, not expecting another commotion.  
Ron was about to blast the bird forever, but with a cry, Hermione petrified it dropped to the floor, tongue straining forward in outrage.

"Don't hurt it Ron."  
Ron turned to her in immediate incense. "How can you say that? Didn't you see the way it viciously attacked Harry? If I hadn't blasted it, Harry would have lost an eye."  
But Hermione was staring at the crow with a fearful sense of suspicion.

"That's exactly it, Ron. It went straight for Harry as soon as it came in. it could have attacked me instead, because I was closest to the window, but it didn't even look around. It's under the Imperius curse."  
Harry looked at the bird dumbfounded – how could-  
Then something clicked in his brain and he rushed to the window to look outside.

But there was nothing there, so Death Eaters were nowhere near Grimmauld Place.  
"Let's get on with this, we've wasted too much time already. Someone from the Order is bound to be looking for us."  
Harry helped Ginny stand up, then made his way back to the ground floor, where Mrs. Black was still screaming insults at them all for befouling the house of her fathers, foam dribbling at her mouth, eyes bulging so much, Harry wondered if her screams weren't given over to the pain.

_Honey __All the movements you're starting to make_

Harry felt dizzy and the room seemed to spin in a sick whirl of colours and sights.  
He hit the floor with a thump and it was like suddenly becoming as tall as a Cornish Pixie, the way the ceiling above him seemed to loom above him.  
All around him, the fire raged on, devouring and scorching the old house that had brought so much pain.

_See me crumble and fall on my face And I know the mistakes that I've made_

He was losing sight of everything now.  
The world was going hazy and dark, uncertain and muffled as though a great hand had come forth to smother him in every sense.

_See it all disappear without trace_

Ron and Hermione rushed to him, only to be blocked by a fallen ceiling beam that was on fire.  
They shouted and surged forward with their wands held aloft, but it was as though the house itself kept planting obstacles in their path to delay saving Harry.  
Ron desperately called his name, whilst Hermione ran back to get Ginny, who was running down the stairs, still unaware of what was happening.

_And they call as they beckon you on __They said start as you mean to go on **--- Start as you mean to go on ---  
**He said I'm going to buy this place and see it go __Stand here beside me baby, watch the orange glow.  
_

Ron had now managed to reach Harry, barely conscious, lying on the floor surrounded by flames as high as a tree.  
He grabbed his shoulders and heaved him upright, supporting him with an arm thrown over his shoulders and waist, forcefully dragging towards the exit.

_Some will laugh, some just sit and cry_

Suddenly everything happened in slow motion, for a few seconds that felt like eternity.  
Harry's legs gave out completely and he crumpled on the floor once more.  
Ron's cries were now getting desperate, and he could hear his sister and Hermione shouting somewhere ahead of him, but he couldn't see anything past the great tall flames hungrily eating their way towards them.  
Harry had crumpled once more to the floor, and now he looked more asleep than anything.

Unbidden came an image to Ron's mind, and it was like lightning a match to bare oil.  
White shadows were gathering around Harry's body and binding him slowly, like great rolls of gauze used on the wizard mummies he'd seen in Egypt.  
He'd seen the guide show them a nick in the binding, and how to unravel it – Fred and George had been seriously screamed at by their mother for unravelling all the mummies in the room, whom had turned out to be ancient Pharaohs – to which the guide had replied smoothly that the exit was to their right, and they could just see themselves out, back to the kiosk.

Ron firmly pointed his wand to his right, and after levitating Harry close to him, spelled the flames apart, just enough for them to get through.  
He didn't know where he'd learned such a spell, but he wasn't thinking about that.  
All that mattered was that he get Harry out of there before it was too late.  
Just as they were about exit the room, the ceilings beams supporting the ceiling completely gave out and showered on the two boys like deluge on a wintry Scottish night.

It was a few minutes later that Ron realised he was buried under the debris, and that he'd lost sight and contact with Harry.  
He tried to shout, but his throat hurt too much, and he began to cough so violently he thought he'd be seeing his lungs come out of his mouth, shredded to pieces.  
He was lucid enough to realise that it was the smoke that caused it, and managed to extricate an arm and cover both mouth and nose with his bleeding hand.  
Then he saw a flash of red hair and dimly realised Ginny was systematically putting out the fires.

Hermione's face loomed over him through a crack in the debris.  
With a rush of fear, he remembered why he was trapped under there in the first place.  
"Get Harry …Herm- get Harry!" Ron croaked out with urgency.  
Apart from a few bruises and scratches, he was fine, but Harry had been unconscious when the ceiling dropped on them.  
It was important he got out first.  
Hermione looked at him uncertainly, and the driving urgency rose to a fever pitch as time slipped by.  
"Just do it!" He snapped at her, and she rushed away.

He sighed deeply, his chest was kinda sore, but if it meant that Harry was tended to first and got out, he'd gladly remain trapped a while longer.  
Ginny was now hurriedly removing the pieces of ceiling off Ron as Hermione tried to find Harry, whom was assumedly trapped under the debris as well.  
When she managed to make a gap in the ruins, Ron pulled his other arm free and climbed out with some difficulty, and immediately went for Hermione.  
Ginny was trying to restrain him and get him to sit down, saying there was blood on his face, but Ron was deaf to her pleas.

He got out his wand and began searching for Harry, calling out his name.

_But you just sit down there and you wonder why_

They found him not too far away from where Ron himself had been trapped. Getting him out was difficult, mostly because he was unconscious, but the three of them managed to get his arms and torso out, then slowly worked towards freeing the rest of his body.

It was a very subdued trio that worked diligently to free their friend from the ruins of a fallen ceiling.  
Harry's head lolled forwards and backwards alternatively in a very grotesque manner, despite their care in jostling him as little as possible.

_So I'm going to buy a gun and start a war If you can tell me something worth fighting for __And I'm going to buy this place is what I said __Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head_

Harry could feel someone gently slapping his face, calling his name, sometimes shaking his shoulders.  
He felt very lethargic and couldn't muster up the strength to tell whoever was bothering him, to simply leave him alone.  
He swam in and out of consciousness many times, and the process itself was very tiring, so it left him lying pale, as though sleeping a very deep sleep, like a coma, unresponsive to all, though not quite dead.  
When he came to, Ginny was looking at him from a weird position because her face was upside down, and he dimly realised his head was on her lap.  
Harry was in too much pain and confusion to be excited.  
Someone was rubbing a cloth over his forehead – probably Hermione, because he could see Ron's pale face looking at him to his right.  
He smiled weakly and spoke low, almost out of breath, "I'm all right."  
"Gave us quite a scare there, mate. Let's get you up."  
Ron helped him to his feet, and Harry leaned on him slightly for support.

His brain was clearing away the fog that had insinuated itself.  
It wasn't very long when he said they had to carry on.  
"Harry it would be best if we left it now and came back; you're in no shape to do this."  
But Harry would not be persuaded.  
They had started it, he said, they might as well finish it.  
You're not well, they replied, let's just get you back to the Burrow.  
He'd stripped the building of its protections, he calmly stated, and they had to make sure it was destroyed now, before other things turned up, literally out of nowhere.  
And so they resumed their places and the process began again.

Harry's vision was swimming slightly, and he felt something wet trickle down his face.  
He brought up a hand to wipe it away, thinking it was sweat, but then his eyes caught a look at the red-stained fingers and he realised he was bleeding.

_Oh to the head __Honey_,  
_All the movements you're starting to make_

As the house began curling in on itself from the top, Harry made sure they'd salvaged all they needed, before he turned once more to the whimpering portrait that Mrs. Black.  
He looked her square in the eyes and slowly raised his wand to point straight between her eyes.  
Suddenly her face screwed up in hate again, and began shouting and working herself up into a momentous rage.  
But she never stopped screaming, and the last thing Harry heard out of her was her yells of outrage as her portrait burned before his eyes, glittering maliciously.  
His face was set and remained calm under a spectacle he deemed as most rewarding and felt that justice had been done to Sirius' memory.

_See me crumble and fall on my face,_  
_And I know the mistakes that I've made __See it all disappear without trace __And they call as they beckon you on __They said start as you mean to go on._

He went outside and stood next to his friends, watching with them as the house slowly crumbled to the ground, a heap of stone and glass and wood that had seen too much evil in its glory days.  
Now it had finally been released and driven to the ground, nothing but ash and crumbles, right where it belonged.  
They apparated to a field close to The Burrow and slowly began walking to the lopsided house, in silence, each mulling over the last few hours' events.

They knew what would come next, they had planned everything out themselves.  
The search for the remaining Horcruxes would continue, whilst the Order fought the Death Eater forces and they all practised spells together, enchantments, and hexes and some curses, for the final battle that would decided their fates.  
Harry stopped and watched his friends walk on ahead, close, yet so far away.  
He reflected that they looked good together, but there was something missing from their gait, possibly innocence and happiness, which had been crushed out of them same as him after last year.  
They were all older now, they had seen how evil and dark the world could be, and looked on at the dark days ahead of them, every day standing tall, always next to him.  
In a sense, watching them standing close together and hearing their voices raised in argument and discussion made his spirit whole again.

Ginny suddenly slowed down and looked back at him, and he couldn't help thinking how pretty she looked just then, with the sun on her face, her hair shining and swishing softly in the breeze, eyes warm and alight with a secret only they knew.  
He signalled towards the trees, and she immediately broke off from Ron and Hermione and headed towards him.  
When she drew near he gathered her close to his side and they walked in the woods for a while, enjoying the sunshine and their closeness.

_So meet me by the bridge_ _Meet me by the lane __When am I going to see that pretty face again_ _Meet me on the road Meet me where I said Blame it all upon a rush of blood to the head._

They sat down at the base of a large tree and hugged, holding each other closely.  
Harry inhaled the scent of her hair, and felt his heart swell with an emotion that was as familiar to him as the feel of a broomstick.  
When this war was over, he thought, I might settle down and have a real family, all to myself, with a nice house and maybe even a dog.  
Ron and Hermione could come visit him sometime and they'd all share lunch or dinner than talk away into the night by the fire.  
He thought it would be nice if Ginny lived with him and was a constant part of that distant life, so fragile and so vibrant.  
He looked down at her face pensively, then tightened his arms with need.  
Slowly he lowered his head and kissed her, then buried his face in her neck and closed his eyes, thinking he had finally come home.

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And that's that, please review, even a very short one, like a one word review is fine, I'm hungering for feedback and support, give me some support people!!

Lady Zee


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